Undesirable noise and vibration associated with the operation of industrial machinery, automobiles, and household appliances having parts fabricated from metallic materials are significant, recurring, and stubborn sources of customer complaints to the original equipment manufacturers. The volume and expense of required remediation efforts place pressure for improvements on mechanical engineering efforts.
Most known operating machines produce vibration and noise due to the inherent unbalance of their moving parts. Undesirable vibration and noise may also result from the dynamic loading of a structure that either supports an operating machine (or an engine) or carries load while in motion. In circumstances when the natural frequency of vibration of a machine or a structure coincides with the frequency of external excitation, a mechanical or structural engineering system resonant vibration can occur.
Because conventional metallic materials typically used in mechanical and structural engineering have relatively low damping capacity, a system resonance can lead not only to the objectionable levels of noise and vibration levels but may even result in a total system failure due to the material fatigue that results from the cyclic variation of the induced stress. Accordingly, it is desired to increase the damping capacity of a metallic material in order to suppress undesirable resonant vibration, thereby preventing the undesirable noise and vibration levels or even a total system failure due to the material fatigue.
In view of the state of the art, it may be advantageous to provide new metallic materials that demonstrate improvement in vibration damping by embedding in the metallic material a wire rope or wire ropes during a rolling, forming or extruding operation that utilizes benefits of inter-wire friction for preventing undesirable noise and vibration in operation of industrial machinery, automobiles, and household appliances that have parts fabricated of metallic materials.
As in so many areas of manufacturing technology, there is always room for improvement related to undesirable noise and vibration associated with metallic materials conventionally used in a wide array of mechanical and structural components.